Nails



H. C. LINGLE Oct. 13, 1964 NAILS 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed July 30, 1965 QWhagg H. C. LINGLE Oct. 13, 1964 NAILS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed July 30, 1963 United States Patent 3,152,334 NAILS Harrison C. Lingle, Wilmette, 111., assignor to Signode Steel Strapping Company, a corporation of Delaware Filed July 30, 1963, Ser. No. 298,683 4 Claims. {CL 1-56) This invention relates to nails and, particularly, to an adhered array of substantially full headed nails which can be assembled for use in automatic nail driving machines.

This application is a continuation-in-part of an application filed in the name of Harrison C. Lingle in the United States Patent Office on April 18, 1961, Serial No. 103,756, now abandoned, which application is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.

While power operated driving machines have been used extensively with staples and T nails, they have not been used to a large degree with nails having enlarged heads such as round or common nails. This latter type is preferred in carpentry because of their anchoring power and minimum tendency to split or crack wooden members into which they are driven. Their lack of acceptance for use in power operated driving machines was primarily due to the problems involved in assembling such nails in a form that they could be handled in the magazines available in automatic nail drivers since they do not lend themselves to a convenient type of assembly for loading large numbers into such magazines.

Previously employed arrangements have included assembling strips of nails by locating the head of one nail under the head of the adjacent nail and adhering the nail shanks together with adhesives. This arrangement severely limited the lengths of such strips since the nails assembled in this fashion took the form of a fan.

In accordance with the present invention, there are provided nails having enlarged heads of different designs that are shaped so they can be assembled into a strip of any desired length. The configuration of the heads permits the adjacent nails to be disposed with their shanks in line contact along substantially their entire length. Adhered strips of nails embodying this invention can be conveniently packaged and efficiently loaded into nail magazines. The nails can then be precisely and successively fed to a power hammer, or the like.

In the illustrated embodiments of this invention, the nails are adhered together into a clip or stick for loading into the magazine of a nail driving tool. In one instance, a major portion of the perimeter of the nail head is made generally circular with its radial dimensions greater than the radial dimensions of the shank. The remainder of the perimeter is formed along a chord line of the circular head that is substantially tangent to a projection of the shank. By placing the chord line portion of the nail head in abutting relationship with the shank portion of an adjacent nail, the adjacent shanks can be juxtaposed along substantially their full length. Such an arrangement eliminates the problems inherent in the prior art as typified by US. Patent No. 2,909,781. In this patent, the nail assembly incorporates a lot of wasted space and is limited in length due to the fan arrangement resulting from assembling the nails in the manner therein disclosed.

The nails assembled in this manner are disposed in a stepped arrangement with the head of one nail overlapping the head of the preceding nail. A typical arrangement is one in which the nails form an angle of about 30 with the horizontal. The magazines are suitably designed to accommodate nail strips of this type. When located in the magazine, the head portion of the lowermost nail in the strip not covered by the adjacent 3,152,334 Patented Oct. 13, 1964 nail is exposed to the nail driver, whereby the nail may be driven into the boards to be joined.

Any desired adhesive may be used to secure the nails together into a clip. As illustrated, a flexible adherent material is used, but other adhesives such as glue or lacquer may be employed, if desired. It is essential that the bonding material be of a nature to facilitate ready fracture when a force is applied to the lowermost or innermost nail of the clip in a direction longitudinal thereof. A nail of the aforementioned design in which the nail head has a flat side and an overhanging portion can be readily guided into nested relationship with an adjacent nail for adhering them together by a very simple tracking assembly that includes a plate against which the fiat portion rests and a second plate for supporting the overhanging head portion.

It is essential that the portion of the nail head not covered by the head of the adjacent nail and exposed to the nail driver of the driving tool be uniformand of a dimension to be contacted by the driver.

In order to satisfy this requirement, since common nails are not made with any degree of precision, it is necessary that they be placed in a die and shaved on their side opposite to the chorded section. This can be done at the same time that the chorded section is removed from the nail head. In the infrequent situation in which this portion of the nail head does not exceed a prescribed amount, the head will not be shaved. It is obvious that shaving is but one way that this can be done.

As previously mentioned, the nails can be adhered together along their shanks by means of a flexible adherent material or glue or lacquer which can be readily fractured when a force is applied to the lowermost or the innermost nail of the clip. However, it has been found that to insure that the nails are maintained at an accurate angle for usage in the fastener driving tool and to provide a strong stick of nails which will not break up into smaller sections, the nails should be adhered by means of the glue or adhesive disposed between the shanks of the nail and around the outside thereof, and interconnected by a strip of Mylar, vinyl, or similar plastic tape extended along and glued to the nail shanks. This combination of glue and tape makes for a strong stick of nails which will stay together even though the adhesive between adjacent nails may fracture. These clips are flexible yet extremely strong. It has been found that clips of this construction withstand severe usage, even dropping from appreciable heights without breaking into segments. If desired, a pressure sensitive tape could also be employed.

The importance in maintaining the angular relationship of the nails in the clip cannot be minimized since if the nails are not fed to the nail driver at the required angle the nail may be jammed in the tool nose piece or two nails may find themselves in the driving chamber at the same time.

Numerous other features and advantages of the present invention will appear from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which there are illustrated several embodiments of the invention which form a part of the specification, and in which:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a common nail in which a portion of the nail taken along a chord line of the circular head substantially tangent to a projection of the shank has been removed;

FIGURE 2 is a side elevational view of a portion of a clip of nails;

FIGURE 3 is a plan view of the clip arrangement shown in FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4,is a view taken along lines 4-4 of FIG- URE 2;

FIGURE 5 is a schematic View of a magazine of a power nail driving tool showing a nail clip in position;

FIGURE 6 is a perspective view of a nail similar to FIGURE 1 in which a portion of the head has been trimmed;

FIGURE 7 is a side elevational view of a portion of a na l clip assembly held together by an adhesive and a superimposed plastic tape;

FIGURE 8 is a plan view of the clip arrangement shown in FIGURE 7;

FIGURE 9 is a view taken along lines 99 of FIG- URE 7; and

FIGURE 10 is a plan view of a modified form of a nail head.

In the embodiment of the invention shown in FIGURES 1 through 4, the nail clip C includes an array of nails 1 of the commercially available common variety that are secured together by strips of a flexible adherent material 2 that are disposed parallel to lines joining the heads of the nails in the clip. Each of the nails 1 has an enlarged head 3 and a cylindrical shank 4. The major portion of the perimeter of the head 3 is generally circular and has radial dimensions greater than the radial dimensions of the shank 4. The remainder of the perimeter of the nail head is formed along a chord line 3a of the head 3 and is substantially tangent to a projection of the shank 4.

With the head being formed in this manner, the nails can be juxtaposed as shown in FIGURE 2, in which the shanks 4 are in line contact with the shank of the adjacent nail along substantially its full length. The portion of the head 3 removed to allow for this assemblage is relatively minor and thus, there is provided an array of nails having heads which have essentially the same holding power as round-headed nails in which a portion has not been cut away.

An obvious advantage of this design is that there are no jagged edges or sharp points formed on the nail which tend to protrude and be dangerous after the nail has been driven. Tests have shown that this nail drives very well and has a clean, neat appearance after being embedded in the materials being joined together.

Another advantage of this novel head design is that it lends itself to be assembled into an adhered array. The nail can be readily moved into position to be glued to an adjacent nail by a simple tracking arrangement in which the nail is oriented by directing the shank and chord section of the nail head against a plate member and the nail guided into position by a plate spaced from the first plate by a distance equal to the shank diameter and supporting the oppositely extending overhung head portion.

When the nails are nested, they can be readily joined by a flexible adherent material.

As shown in FIGURE 2, the heads of the successive nails are disposed in a stepped relationship. To accommodate these nail clips, a'magazine of the type shown in FIGURE 5 is used. The heads 3 of nails 1 are guided on a nail support 5 which is part of an automatic nail driving tool 6. The head of the lowermost nail of the clip abuts against the mid portion of a pin 7 that is resiliently biased into contact with the nail strip by a spring 8. The tension of the spring is determined by a threaded plug 9.

The driving mechanism illustrated in FIGURE 5 is merely intended to be representative of various types of mechanisms that could be used and the details of the tool are not important to an understanding of the present invention.

Briefly, tool 6 employs a'rectangularly shaped blade .16 of a width approximately equal to the dimension D of the head not covered by the head of the adjacent nail.

The action of the driving blade hitting the nail severs the nail from the strip and forces the nail down through the center of the nose piecfill into the members to be joined.

t Only one nail is driven at a time because once the driver contacts the first nail, it effectively blocks any other nails from entering into the nose piece until the first nail is driven and the blade 10 is returned to the position shown in the drawings. It can be seen that these nails lend themselves to be driven by this mechanism which is as simple and as foolproof as an ordinary staple or T nail driver. .In the arrangement shown, the nails are assembled to. form an angle of approximately 30 to the horizontal. Also, the array of nails is disposed at a slight angular relationship, on the order of 4, relative to the side of the nose piece. This latter angle is set so that when the end nail enters the nose piece, the exposed portion of its head is in position to be engaged by the driver and results in the driver engaging the center portion of the nail just after the nail is severed from the array which aids in efiiciently driving the nail. In addition, with this arrangement, the nail does not come into contact with the side of the nose piece, which substantially minimizes any sparking that could be caused by the nail hitting the inside of the nose piece during the driving operation. The angular relationship called for for any given set of conditions must be maintained by the nails within the clip to insure that the one nail and only one nail will be accurately engaged by the driver.

In the above embodiment, it is assumed that the nail heads are uniform and thus the dimension D of the head portion not covered by the head of an adjacent nail is substantially constant. It can be appreciated that if the nail heads vary to any degree, the exposed portion of the nail head would similarly vary, which could result in more than one nail being exposed to the nail driver in the nose piece and cause jamming during the driving operation.

To permit the use of commercially available common nails, the heads of which vary to some extent, the nails are run through a die where in addition to cutting olf the chorded segment of the nail head, the opposite end portion of the nail head is sliced off in the event the width of the nail exceeds a preset amount. The Width of the nail head is the diameter of the head measured from the point on the chord section of the nail head that is a projection of the nail shank. Put another way, it is that distance measured from the same point on the chord sec.- tion to a point on the perimeter of the nail head measured along a line normal to the chord section.

A nail 12 of the type having a head 13 and shank 14 is illustrated in FIGURE 6. The head portion 13 has a chord section 13a and a flat, generally parallel, section 13b.

With the nails being cut to a constant head width and having the same shank diameter, they can be assembled into a clip 15 in which the head dimension D exposed to the nail driver is constant and equal to the shank diameter (see FIGURE 7). It is recognized that an occasional nail might have a head that is within the prescribed limits and thus no shaving will take place. With this in mind, FIGURE 8 has been drawnto include such a nail 21.

As previously discussed, it is essential that the nails in the clip be maintained in their preset angular relationship so that when the nail clip is inserted into the magazine of a fastener driving tool, a single nail will be contacted and driven into place free of any jamming in the nose piece. In addition, it is also important that the clip of nails be sufliciently strong so it will not be broken into smaller segments when exposed to rough treatment, such as dropping, or bending. It has been found that a clip that will meet these requirements is one in which the nails are adhered together by an adhesive such as a natural or synthetic resin or'rubber 16 used with or without solvent located between the shanks and over the outer surfaces thereof, and strips of plastic tape 17, 18 bonded to the adhesive when it is sufiiciently hot to flow. Various types of adhesives could be used, such as polyesters or a modified synthetic rubber. The tape is disposed across U the shanks of the nails and parallel to the line interconnecting the heads of the nails. A clip of this type is flexible, yet sufiiciently rigid to retain the nails in their proper angular relationship.

In FIGURE 10, there is illustrated a modified form of nail head. In this design, the chord section 20a of the nail head is tangent to a projection of the shank 14 and the back portion 20b of the nail head is arcuate, rather than flat, as shown in FIGURE 6. However, while arcuate, the width W is equal to that of nail head 13 in FIGURE 6.

From the foregoing, it will be observed that numerous variations and modifications may be efiected without departing from the true spirit and scope of the novel concepts of the invention. In this regard, it should be understood that the enlarged head portions of the nail can take other shapes wherein the width of the nail head measured along a line leading from the point on the perimeter which is a projection of the shank through the center of the shank to the opposite side of the head is constant. For example, the invention is applicable to a nail in which there is a notch formed in the head to accommodate the shank of an adjacent nail. Such a nail is disclosed in US. Patent No. 2,940,081, issued to A. G. Juilfs. In addition, a paper tape, as well as a plastic tape, could be employed if desired.

I claim:

1. A nail clip comprising a nested array of nails, each of said nails having a cylindrical shank portion and a head portion, a major portion of the perimeter of each head portion being generally circular and having radial dimensions greater than the radial dimensions of the shank, the remainder of the perimeter including one section extending along a chord line of the generally circular head an substantially tangent to a projection of the shank and a second diametrically opposed section spaced outward from said shank and disposed parallel to said first section, the distance between said first and second section of each of the nail heads in the clip being constant whereby the exposed head portions of the nails in the clip are substantially equal, and means for adhering the shanks of the nail together.

2. A nail clip comprising a nested array of nails, each of said nails having a cylindrical shank portion and a head portion, a major portion of the perimeter of each head portion being generally circular and having radial dimensions greater than the radial dimensions of the shank, the remainder of the perimeter including one section extending along a chord line of the generally circular head and substantially tangent to a projection of the and a second arcuately shaped section diametrically spaced from said first section and radially spaced from said shank, the distance between the chord portion and said arcuate section of each of the nail heads measured along a line normal to the chord line and passing through the axis of the shank being identical whereby the exposed head portions of the nails in the clip are substantially equal, and means for adhering the shanks of the nails together.

3. A nail clip comprising a nested array of nails, each of said nails having a cylindrical shank portion and a head portion, a major portion of the perimeter of each head portion being generally circular and having radial dimensions greater than the radial dimensions of the shank, the remainder of the perimeter including one section extending along a chord line of the generally circular head and substantially tangent to a projection of the shank and a second section diametrically spaced from and parallel to said first section outboard of said shank, the distance between said first and second sections of each of said nail heads being constant whereby the exposed head portions of the nails in the clip are substantially equal, and means for adhering the shanks of the nails together, said last mentioned means including an adhesive disposed between the nail shanks and along the outer surfaces thereof, and a tape secured to said adhesive on both sides of said clip and extending lengthwise thereof.

4. A nail having a cylindrical shank portion and a head portion, a major portion of the perimeter of the head portion being generally circular and having radial dimensions greater than the radial dimensions of the shank, the remainder or the perimeter including one section extending along a chord line of the generally circular head and substantially tangent to a projection of the shank and a second section diametrically spaced from and parallel to said first section, said second section being spaced from said shank.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,033,241 Graham July 23, 1912 1,883,113 Titchener Oct. 18, 1932 2,743,445 Lerner May 1, 1956 2,940,081 iuilfs June 14, 1960 2,991,477 Hoyle July 11, 1961 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,057,398 France Mar. 8, 1954 UNITED sums PATENT ounce CERTIFICATE OF CQRRECTEQN Patent- Non 3 152 334 Oosober 13 1964 Harrison C. Lingle in the above numbered patthat error appears ateno should read as It is hereby certified that the said Letters P ent requiring correction and corrected below.

Column 5 line 38 for "section" read sections line 42 for nail read nails column 6 line L, after "the" insert shank o Signed and sealed this 2nd day of February 1965,

(SEAL) Attest:

EDWARD J. BRENNER ERNEST W. SWIDER Attesting Officer Commissioner of Patents 

1. A NAIL CLIP COMPRISING A NESTED ARRAY OF NAILS, EACH OF SAID NAILS HAVING A CYLINDRICAL SHANK PORTION AND A HEAD PORTION, A MAJOR PORTION OF THE PERIMETER OF EACH HEAD PORTION BEING GENERALLY CIRCULAR AND HAVING RADIAL DIMENSIONS GREATER THAN THE RADIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE SHANK, THE REMAINDER OF THE PERIMETER INCLUDING ONE SECTION EXTENDING ALONG A CHORD LINE OF THE GENERALLY CIRCULAR HEAD AN SUBSTANTIALLY TANGENT TO A PROJECTION OF THE SHANK AND A SECOND DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED SECTION SPACED OUTWARD FROM SAID SHANK AND DISPOSED PARALLEL TO SAID FIRST SECTION, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN SAID FIRST AND SECOND SECTION OF EACH OF THE NAIL HEADS IN THE CLIP BEING CONSTANT WHEREBY THE EXPOSED HEAD PORTIONS OF THE NAILS IN THE CLIP ARE SUBSTANTIALLY EQUAL, AND MEANS FOR ADHERING THE SHANKS OF THE NAIL TOGETHER. 